Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Vol. 1 (of 3)

IRISH DISSIPATION IN 1778

The huntsman’s cottage – Preparations for a seven days’ carousal – A cock-fight – Welsh main – Harmony – A cow and a hogshead of wine consumed by the party – Comparison between former dissipation and that of the present day – A dandy at dinner in Bond-street – Captain Parsons Hoye and his nephew – Character and description of both – The nephew disinherited by his uncle for dandyism – Curious anecdote of Dr. Jenkins piercing Admiral Cosby’s fist.

Close to the kennel of my father’s hounds, he had built a small cottage, which was occupied solely by an old huntsman, (Matthew Querns,) his older wife, and his nephew, a whipper-in. The chase, the bottle, and the piper, were the enjoyments of winter; and nothing could recompense a suspension of these enjoyments.

My elder brother, justly apprehending that the frost and snow of Christmas might probably prevent their usual occupation of the chase, on St. Stephen’s day, (26th Dec.) determined to provide against any listlessness during the shut-up period, by an uninterrupted match of what was called hard going, till the weather should break up.

A hogshead of superior claret¹⁴ was therefore sent to the cottage of old Querns the huntsman; and a fat cow, killed, and plundered of her skin, was hung up by the heels. All the windows were closed, to keep out the light. One room, filled with straw and numerous blankets, was destined for a bed-chamber in common; and another was prepared as a kitchen for the use of the servants. Claret, – cold, mulled, or buttered,¹⁵– was to be the beverage for the whole company; and in addition to the cow above mentioned, chickens, bacon, and bread were the only admitted viands. Wallace and Hosey, my father’s and my brother’s pipers, and Doyle, a blind but famous fiddler, were employed to enliven the banquet, which it was determined should continue till the cow became a skeleton, and the claret should be on its stoop.

My two elder brothers; – two gentlemen of the name of Taylor (one of them afterward a writer in India); – Mr. Barrington Lodge, a rough songster; – Frank Skelton, a jester and a butt; – Jemmy Moffat, the most knowing sportsman of the neighbourhood; – and two other sporting gentlemen of the county, – composed the permanent bacchanalians. A few visitors were occasionally admitted.

As for myself, I was too unseasoned to go through more than the first ordeal, which was on a frosty St. Stephen’s day, when the hard goers partook of their opening banquet, and several neighbours were invited, to honour the commencement of what they called their shut-up pilgrimage.

The old huntsman was the only male attendant; and his ancient spouse, once a kitchen-maid in the family, (now somewhat resembling the amiable Leonarda in Gil Blas,) was the cook; whilst the drudgery fell to the lot of the whipper-in. A long knife was prepared, to cut collops from the cow; a large turf fire seemed to court the gridiron on its cinders; the pot bubbled up as if proud of its contents, whilst plump white chickens floated in crowds upon the surface of the water; the simmering potatoes, just bursting their drab surtouts, exposed the delicate whiteness of their mealy bosoms; the claret was tapped, and the long earthen wide-mouthed pitchers stood gaping under the impatient cock, to receive their portions. The pipers plied their chants; the fiddler clasped his cremona; and never did any feast commence with more auspicious appearances of hilarity and dissipation – anticipations which were not doomed to be falsified.

I shall never forget the attraction this novelty had for my youthful mind. All thoughts but those of good cheer were for the time totally obliterated. A few curses were, it is true, requisite to spur on old Leonarda’s skill, but at length the banquet entered: the luscious smoked bacon, bedded on its cabbage mattress, and partly obscured by its own savoury steam, might have tempted the most fastidious of epicures; whilst the round trussed chickens, ranged by the half dozen on hot pewter dishes, turned up their white plump merry-thoughts exciting equally the eye and appetite: fat collops of the hanging cow, sliced indiscriminately from her tenderest points, grilled over the clear embers upon a shining gridiron, (half drowned in their own luscious juices, and garnished with little pyramids of congenial shalots,) smoked at the bottom of the well-furnished board. A prologue of cherry-bounce (brandy) preceded the entertainment, which was enlivened by hob-nobs and joyous exclamations.

Numerous toasts, as was customary in those days, intervened to prolong and give zest to the repast: every man shouted forth the name of his fair favourite, and each voluntarily surrendered a portion of his own reason, in bumpers to the beauty of his neighbour’s mistress. The pipers jerked from their bags appropriate planxties to every jolly sentiment: the jokers cracked the usual jests and ribaldry: one songster chanted the joys of wine and women; another gave, in full glee, “stole away” and “the pleasures of the fox-chase:” the fiddler sawed his merriest jigs: the old huntsman sounded his long cow’s horn, and thrusting his fore-finger into his ear (to aid the quaver,) gave the view holloa! of nearly ten minutes’ duration; to which melody tally ho! was responded by every stentorian voice. A fox’s brush stuck into a candlestick, in the centre of the table, was worshipped as a divinity! Claret flowed – bumpers were multiplied – and chickens, in the garb of spicy spitchcocks, assumed the name of devils to whet the appetites which it was impossible to conquer.

For some hours my jollity kept pace with that of my companions: but at length reason gradually began to lighten me of its burden, and in its last efforts kindly suggested the straw-chamber as an asylum. Two couple of favourite hounds had been introduced to share the joyous pastime of their friends and master; and the deep bass of their throats, excited by the shrillness of the huntsman’s tenor, harmonized by two rattling pipers, a jigging fiddler, and twelve voices, in twelve different keys, all bellowing in one continuous unrelenting chime – was the last point of recognition which Bacchus permitted me to exercise: my eyes now began to perceive a much larger company than the room actually contained; – the lights were more than doubled, without any real increase of their number; and even the chairs and tables commenced dancing a series of minuets before me. A faint tally ho! was attempted by my reluctant lips; but I believe the effort was unsuccessful, and I very soon lost, in the straw-room, all that brilliant consciousness of existence, in the possession of which the morning had found me so happy.

Just as I was closing my eyes to a twelve hours’ slumber, I distinguished the general roar of “stole away!” which seemed almost to raise up the very roof of old Matt Querns’s cottage.

At noon, next day, a scene of a different nature was exhibited. I found, on waking, two associates by my side, in as perfect insensibility as that from which I had just aroused. Our pipers appeared indubitably dead! but the fiddler, who had the privilege of age and blindness, had taken a hearty nap, and seemed as much alive as ever.

The room of banquet had been re-arranged by the old woman: spitchcocked chickens, fried rashers, and broiled marrowbones appeared struggling for precedence. The clean cloth looked fresh and exciting: jugs of mulled and buttered claret foamed hot upon the refurnished table; and a better or heartier breakfast I never enjoyed in my life.

A few members of the jovial crew had remained all night at their posts; but I suppose alternately took some rest, as they seemed not at all affected by their repletion. Soap and hot water restored at once their spirits and their persons; and it was determined that the rooms should be ventilated and cleared out for a cock-fight, to pass time till the approach of dinner.

In this battle-royal, every man backed his own bird; twelve of which courageous animals were set down together to fight it out – the survivor to gain all. In point of principle, the battle of the Horatii and Curiatii was re-acted; and in about an hour, one cock crowed out his triumph over the mangled body of his last opponent; – being himself, strange to say, but little wounded. The other eleven lay dead; and to the victor was unanimously voted a writ of ease, with sole monarchy over the hen-roost for the remainder of his days; and I remember him, for many years, the proud and happy commandant of his poultry-yard and seraglio. They named him “Hyder Ally;” – and I do not think a more enviable two-legged animal existed.

Fresh visitors were introduced each successive day, and the seventh morning had arisen before the feast broke up. As that day advanced, the cow was proclaimed to have furnished her full quantum of good dishes; the claret was upon its stoop; and the last gallon, mulled with a pound of spices, was drunk in tumblers to the next merry meeting! – All now retired to their natural rest, until the evening announced a different scene.

An early supper, to be partaken of by all the young folks, of both sexes, in the neighbourhood, was provided in the dwelling-house, to terminate the festivities. A dance, as usual, wound up the entertainment; and what was then termed a “raking pot of tea,”¹⁶ put a finishing stroke, in jollity and good-humour, to such a revel as I never saw before, and, I am sure, shall never see again.

When I compare with the foregoing the habits of the present day, and see the grandsons of those joyous and vigorous sportsmen mincing their fish and tit-bits at their favourite box in Bond-street; amalgamating their ounce of salad on a silver saucer; employing six sauces to coax one appetite; burning up the palate to make its enjoyments the more exquisite; sipping their acid claret, disguised by an olive or neutralized by a chesnut; lisping out for the scented waiter, and paying him the price of a feast for the modicum of a Lilliputian, and the pay of a captain for the attendance of a blackguard; – it amuses me extremely, and makes me speculate on what their forefathers would have done to those admirable Epicenes, if they had had them at the “Pilgrimage” in the huntsman’s cottage.

To these extremes of former roughness and modern affectation, it would require the pen of such a writer as Fielding to do ample justice. It may, however, afford our reader some diversion to trace the degrees which led from the grossness of the former down to the effeminacy of the latter; and these may, in a great measure, be collected from the various incidents which will be found scattered throughout these sketches of sixty solar revolutions.

Nothing indeed can better illustrate the sensation which the grandfathers, or even aged fathers, of these slim lads of the Bond-street and St. James’s-street establishments, must have felt upon finding their offspring in the elegant occupations I have just mentioned, than an incident relating to Captain Parsons Hoye, of County Wicklow, who several years since met with a specimen of the kind of lad at Hudson’s, in Covent-Garden.

A nephew of his, an effeminate young fellow, who had been either on the Continent or in London a considerable time, and who expected to be the Captain’s heir, (being his sister’s son) accidentally came into the coffee-room. Neither uncle nor nephew recollected each other; but old Parsons’ disgust at the dandified manners, language, and dress of the youth, gave rise to an occurrence which drew from the bluff seaman epithets wonderfully droll, but rather too coarse to record: – the end of it was, that, when Parsons discovered the relationship of the stranger, (by their exchanging cards in anger,) he first kicked him out of the coffee-room, and then struck him out of a will which he had made, – and died very soon after, as if on purpose to mortify the macaroni!

Commodore Trunnion was a civilized man, and a beauty (but a fool), compared to Parsons Hoye, – who had a moderate hereditary property near Wicklow; had been a captain in the royal navy; was a bad farmer, a worse sportsman, and a blustering justice of peace: but great at potation! and what was called, “in the main, a capital fellow.” He was nearly as boisterous as his adopted element: his voice was always as if on the quarter-deck; and the whistle of an old boatswain, who had been decapitated by his side, hung as a memento, by a thong of leather, from his waistcoat button-hole. It was frequently had recourse to, and, whenever he wanted a word, supplied the deficiency.

In form, the Captain was squat, broad, and coarse: a large purple nose, with a broad crimson chin to match, were the only features of any consequence in his countenance, except a couple of good-enough bloodshot eyes, screened by most exuberant grizzle eye-brows. His powdered wig had behind it a queue in the form of a hand-spike, – and a couple of rolled-up paste curls, like a pair of carronades, adorned its broad-sides; a blue coat, with slash cuffs and plenty of navy buttons, surmounted a scarlet waistcoat with tarnished gold binding – the skirts of which, he said, he would have of their enormous length because it assured him that the tailor had put all the cloth in it; a black Barcelona adorned his neck; while a large old round hat, bordered with gold lace, pitched on his head, and turned up on one side, with a huge cockade stuck into a buttonless loop, gave him a swaggering air. He bore a shillelagh, the growth of his own estate, in a fist which would cover more ground than the best shoulder of wether mutton in a London market.¹⁷ Yet the Captain had a look of generosity, good nature, benevolence, and hospitality, which his features did their very best to conceal, and which none but a good physiognomist could possibly discover.

MY BROTHER’S HUNTING-LODGE

Waking the piper – Curious scene at my brother’s hunting-lodge – Joe Kelly’s and Peter Alley’s heads fastened to the wall – Operations practised in extricating them.

I met with another ludicrous instance of the dissipation of even later days, a few months after my marriage. Lady B – and myself took a tour through some of the southern parts of Ireland, and among other places visited Castle Durrow, near which place my brother, Henry French Barrington, had built a hunting cottage, wherein he happened to have given a house-warming the previous day.

The company, as might be expected at such a place and on such an occasion, was not the most select: – in fact, they were hard-going sportsmen, and some of the half-mounted gentry were not excluded from the festival.

Amongst others, Mr. Joseph Kelly, of unfortunate fate, brother to Mr. Michael Kelly, (who by the bye does not say a word about him in his Reminiscences,) had been invited, to add to the merriment by his pleasantry and voice, and had come down from Dublin solely for the purpose of assisting at the banquet.

It may not be amiss to say something here of this remarkable person. I knew him from his early youth. His father was a dancing-master in Mary-street, Dublin; and I found in the newspapers of that period a number of puffs, in French and English, of Mr. O’Kelly’s abilities in that way – one of which, a certificate from a French artiste of Paris, is curious enough.¹⁸ What could put it into his son’s head, that he had been Master of the Ceremonies at Dublin Castle is rather perplexing! He became a wine-merchant latterly, dropped the O which had been placed at the beginning of his name, and was a well-conducted and respectable man.¹⁹

Joe was a slender young man, remarkably handsome; but what, in that part of the country, they emphatically styled “the devil!” I recollect his dancing a hornpipe upon the stage in a sailor’s costume most admirably. He also sang the songs of Young Meadows, in “Love in a Village,” extremely well, as likewise those of Macheath and other parts; but he could never give the acting any effect. He was, strictly speaking, a bravura singer; – there was no deep pathos – nothing touchant in his cadences; – but in drinking-songs, &c. he was unrivalled. As his brother has not thought proper to speak about him, it might be considered out of place for me to go into his history, all of which I know, and many passages whereof might probably be both entertaining and instructive. Some parts of it however are already on record, and others I hope will never be recorded. The Duke of Wellington knew Joe Kelly extremely well; and if he had merited advancement, I dare say he would have received it. The last conversation I had with him was on the Boulevard Italien, in Paris. I was walking with my son, then belonging to the 5th Dragoon Guards. Kelly came up and spoke to us. I shook him by the hand, and he talked away: – spoke to my son – no answer; – he tried him again – no reply. Kelly seemed surprised, and said, “Don’t you know me, Barrington? why don’t you speak to me?” – “’Tis because I do know you that I do not speak to you,” replied my son. – Kelly blushed, but turned it off with a laugh. I could not then guess the reason for this cut direct; and my son refused to tell me: I have since, however, become acquainted with it, and think the sarcasm well merited. It was indeed the bitterer, from its being the only one I ever heard my son utter. Joe Kelly killed his man in a duel, for which he was tried, and narrowly escaped. According to his own account indeed, he killed plenty at the battle of Waterloo, and in other actions. He was himself shot at Paris by a commissary with whom he had quarrelled, and the Irish humorists remarked thereupon that Joe had “died a natural death.”

Of this convivial assemblage at my brother’s, he was, I take it, the very life and soul. The dining-room (the only good one) had not been finished when the day of the dinner-party arrived, and the lower parts of the walls having only that morning received their last coat of plaster, were, of course, totally wet.

We had intended to surprise my brother; but had not calculated on the scene I was to witness. On driving to the cottage-door, I found it open, whilst a dozen dogs, of different descriptions, showed themselves ready to receive us not in the most polite manner. My servant’s whip, however, soon sent them about their business, and I ventured into the parlour to see what cheer. It was about ten in the morning: the room was strewed with empty bottles – some broken – some interspersed with glasses, plates, dishes, knives, spoons, &c. – all in glorious confusion. Here and there were heaps of bones, relics of the former day’s entertainment, which the dogs, seizing their opportunity, had cleanly picked. Three or four of the Bacchanalians lay fast asleep upon chairs – one or two others on the floor, among whom a piper lay on his back, apparently dead, with a table-cloth spread over him, and surrounded by four or five candles, burnt to the sockets; his chanter and bags were laid scientifically across his body, his mouth was quite open, and his nose made ample amends for the silence of his drone. Joe Kelly, and a Mr. Peter Alley, from the town of Durrow, (one of the half-mounted gentry,) were fast asleep in their chairs, close to the wall.

Had I never viewed such a scene before, it would have almost terrified me; but it was nothing more than the ordinary custom which we called waking the piper.²⁰

I sent away my carriage and its fair inmate to Castle Durrow, whence we had come, and afterward proceeded to seek my brother. No servant was to be seen, man or woman. I went to the stables, wherein I found three or four more of the goodly company, who had just been able to reach their horses, but were seized by Morpheus before they could mount them, and so lay in the mangers awaiting a more favourable opportunity. I apprehend some of the horses had not been as considerate as they should have been to tipsy gentlemen, since two or three of the latter had their heads cut by being kicked or trampled on. Returning hence to the cottage, I found my brother, also asleep, on the only bed which it then afforded: he had no occasion to put on his clothes, since he had never taken them off.

I next waked Dan Tyron, a wood-ranger of Lord Ashbrook, who had acted as maître d’hôtel in making the arrangements, and providing a horse-load of game to fill up the banquet. I then inspected the parlour, and insisted on breakfast. Dan Tyron set to work: an old woman was called in from an adjoining cabin, the windows were opened, the room cleared, the floor swept, the relics removed, and the fire lighted in the kitchen. The piper was taken away senseless, but my brother would not suffer either Joe or Alley to be disturbed till breakfast was ready. No time was lost; and, after a very brief interval, we had before us abundance of fine eggs, and milk fresh from the cow, with brandy, sugar and nutmeg in plenty; – a large loaf, fresh butter, a cold round of beef, (which had not been produced on the previous day,) red herrings, and a bowl-dish of potatoes roasted on the turf ashes; – in addition to which, ale, whiskey, and port made up the refreshments. All being duly in order, we at length awakened Joe Kelly, and Peter Alley, his neighbour: they had slept soundly, though with no other pillow than the wall; and my brother announced breakfast with a view holloa!²¹

The twain immediately started and roared in unison with their host most tremendously! it was however in a very different tone from the view holloa, – and continued much longer.

“Come boys,” says French, giving Joe a pull – “come!”

“Oh, murder!” says Joe, “I can’t!” – “Murder! – murder!” echoed Peter. French pulled them again, upon which they roared the more, still retaining their places. I have in my lifetime laughed till I nearly became spasmodic; but never were my risible muscles put to greater tension than upon this occasion. The wall, as I said before, had but just received a coat of mortar, and of course was quite soft and yielding when Joe and Peter, having no more cellarage for wine, and their eyesight becoming opake, thought proper to make it their pillow; it was nevertheless setting fast from the heat and lights of an eighteen hours’ carousal; and, in the morning, when my brother awakened his guests, the mortar had completely set, and their hair being the thing best calculated to amalgamate therewith, the entire of Joe’s stock, together with his queue, and half his head, was thoroughly and irrecoverably bedded in the greedy and now marble cement; – so that if determined to move, he must have taken the wall along with him, for separate it would not. One side of Peter’s head was in the same state of imprisonment, so as to give his bust the precise character of a bas-relief. Nobody could assist them, and there they both stuck fast.

A consultation was now held on this pitiful case, which I maliciously endeavoured to protract as long as I could, and which was every now and then interrupted by a roar from Peter or Joe, as each made fresh efforts to rise. At length, it was proposed by Dan Tyron to send for the stone-cutter, and get him to cut them out of the wall with a chisel. I was literally unable to speak two sentences for laughing. The old woman meanwhile tried to soften the obdurate wall with melted butter and new milk – but in vain. I related the school story how Hannibal had worked through the Alps with vinegar and hot irons: – this experiment likewise was made, but to no purpose; the hot irons touching the raw, only added a new octave to the roars of the captives, and the Carthaginian solvent had no better success than the old crone’s. Peter being of a more passionate nature, grew ultimately quite outrageous: he bellowed, gnashed his teeth, and swore vengeance against the mason; – but as he was only held by one side, a thought at last struck him: he asked for two knives, which being brought, he whetted one against the other, and introducing the blades close to his skull, sawed away at cross corners for half an hour, cursing and crying out during the whole operation, till at length he was liberated, with the loss only of half his hair, the skin of one jaw, and a piece of his scalp, which he had sliced off in zeal and haste for his liberty. I never saw a fellow so extravagantly happy! Fur was scraped from the crown of a new hat, to stop the bleeding; his head was duly tied up with the old woman’s praskeen;²² and he was soon in a state of bodily convalescence. Our solicitude was now required solely for Joe, whose head was too deeply buried to be exhumated with so much facility. At this moment Bob Casey, of Ballynakill, a very celebrated wig-maker, just dropped in, to see what he could pick up honestly in the way of his profession, or steal in the way of any thing else; and he immediately undertook to get Mr. Kelly out of the mortar by a very ingenious but tedious process, namely, – clipping with his scissors and then rooting out with an oyster knife. He thus finally succeeded, in less than an hour, in setting Joseph Kelly, Esq. once more at liberty, at the price of his queue, which was totally lost, and of the exposure of his raw and bleeding occiput. The operation was, indeed, of a mongrel description – somewhat between a complete tonsure and an imperfect scalping, to both of which denominations it certainly presented claims. However, it is an ill wind that blows nobody good! Bob Casey got the making of a skull-piece for Joe, and my brother French had the pleasure of paying for it, as gentlemen in those days honoured any order given while enjoying their hospitality, by a guest, to the family shop-keeper or artizan.

I ate a hearty breakfast, returned to Durrow, and, having rejoined my companion, we pursued our journey to Waterford, – amusing ourselves the greater part of the way with the circumstances just related, which, however, I do not record merely as an abstract anecdote, but, as I observed in starting, to show the manners and habits of Irish country society and sportsmen,²³ even so recently as thirty-five years ago; and to illustrate the changes of those habits and manners, and the advances toward civilization, which, coupled with the extraordinary want of corresponding prosperity, present phenomena I am desirous of impressing upon my reader’s mind, throughout the whole of this miscellaneous collection of original anecdotes and observations.